My job is awesome. I get to spend a lot of every day drawing. I feel lucky every single day, every time I pick up a pen, every time I’m hunched up over a piece of watercolor paper smooshing paint around. It’s the best.

And though I know Matthew loves his creative work, drawing has one huge advantage over writing: I get to listen to stuff while I draw. In this new age of streaming media, on-demand podcasts and web radio (is that even what it’s called?) I pretty much have my pick of what to listen to while I draw (sadly, Howard continues to keep his archive close to his chest).

One of my favorite recent podcasts is an NPR show called Strangers – it’s a storytelling podcast of where and how and why people and their stories intersect. I know about it because our dear friend Lea Thau left another one of my favorite storytelling series, The Moth, to start Strangers. The stories are fascinating, crazy, wonderful and heartbreaking (often all at the same time). Personal favorites include the story of a father and his schizophrenic son, the journalist who gets mugged and the story of Big Jim and Smokey Joe.

Strangers is only partially funded by the radio station that sponsors the show, KCRW. The rest of the money has to come from fundraising. Lea is running a Kickstarter campaign to fund season two, and if you value good storytelling and great content (that’s free!) please go to the Kickstarter page HERE and donate a dime or two (or more!).

If you’ve got more than two dimes and want a little something you can hold in your hands, we’ve got something really special for you – a limited edition print by yours truly (ME!).

This is a premium for donations of $75 or more, and will never be available to anyone ever again. I happen to love this painting. So, if you don’t like to invest in art without getting the thumbs up from someone in the arts, well, you’ve got my thumbs up. This painting is da bomb (as they say at Sotheby’s). (And seriously, I almost never say stuff like this about my own work, so take it from me, it’s not complete crap!)

If you want something a little less dark and spooky and a little more more fun and goofy, our Six Degrees of Francis Bacon poster is a premium at the $50 and up level. The poster showcases 50 of the greats in western literature all interconnected and eventually related to Francis (oh, and Kevin) Bacon by no more than six degrees. Connections include things like “John Steinbeck knew even more about wrath than Dante” and “Allen Ginsberg smoked some billy budds with Herman Melville” and “Steven King burns $100 bills and laughs gleefully with J.K. Rowling.” You know, that sort of thing.

If you love storytelling, if you love great online content, if you love being entertained and moved, or if you love giving away your money, please head over to the Strangers Kickstarter page and help keep this first-rate show going. Your support of the podcast will then support my life of drawing at my desk listening to Strangers and then retelling the stories to Matthew in a wholly unsatisfying way at the dinner table.

We love Strangers! Fundraising ends on Halloween, so PLEASE DONATE NOW!!